There was a big announcement that got little attention during Scott Forstall’s demo of iOS 6… the merging of your phone number and Apple ID for iMessage and FaceTime!

Currently if someone sends you a message via iMessage or calls you via FaceTime and uses your phone number, that call/message will only go to your iPhone. As somebody who uses Messages on both of my Macs, on my iPad, and iPhone, along with FaceTime on all the same devices, its hard to get all of your friends/family/business contacts to use your email address (Apple ID) as your single point of contact for email and calls. For the people out there that are not nerds, it can be very confusing!

Coming in iOS 6 it won’t matter whether the person attempts to call/message your email address or phone number, Apple is connecting the two together! Initiate a FaceTime call to someone’s phone number and their Mac(s), iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch will all ring; send someone a message via iMessage to their phone number and it will be pushed to all the same devices.

“If someone calls you on your phone number with a FaceTime call, you can answer the call on your iPad or even your Mac. And we're doing the exact same thing with iMessage.” —Scott Forstall, SVP iOS Software at Apple, WWDC 2012

I’ve found many blog posts of people wanting this feature, and now it’s coming!! iOS 6 will be avaliable this fall. To check out the other features of iOS 6 check out Apple’s website.